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***

Dennis on the Streets of Baltimore

by Mike Smith

When I was eleven years old, I remember being taken away by social services. I was sitting on the floor in my room, watching Green Acres on Nick @ Nite and waiting for my mom to call me to supper. I liked television shows that humorously depicted country life. My favorites were The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door.

"May I come in, Dennis?"

This was not my mom's voice.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, a little uncertain.

This little old lady came into my room and sat on the corner of my bed.

"What are you watching, Dennis?"

"Green Acres."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

We sat there for a minute or two. I was pretending to watch the show, but really I wanted to know what this old bitch was up to. I didn't know why she was pretending to watch the show. She smelled like an old woman, like my grandmother. She was short and plump. She sported a long, blue dress with flowers all over it. Finally, she spoke.

"We need you to come down to my office for a little while, would that be okay?"

"I guess so," I said. "Where's my mom?"

"Well, we need her to come down, too."

I didn't care. It got me out of the house. It was another adventure.
I had been to plenty of offices with little old ladies over the years
and I never understood why I was there, but I was glad I wasn't stuck at home. This lady took me by the hand and walked me into the kitchen. Green Acres was still on in my room. There was a young guy in the kitchen, sitting at the table with my mom.

"Hi Dennis," this guy said.

I said nothing to this guy. He looked like he was about 30 years old
and wore a suit. I didn't trust him much. He didn't look trustworthy.

"You ready to go?" he asked, staring at me.

"Yeah."

He seemed anxious to leave, whereas the lady was patient. My mom looked at me as if she wanted to tell me something. I figured maybe this guy was forcing her to keep her mouth shut. We weren't allowed to sit in the same car. I went with the lady, while my mom went with the guy.

Both cars were black four-door sedans. The guy's car had a red light in the windshield.

"See you downtown," he said to us, smiling and waving.

The lady strapped me in the passenger seat of her car and we left.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Some things have come up, Dennis."

"But what things?" I asked, becoming a bit frightened for the first
time.

"We'll discuss all of that at my office, okay?"

She was so nice. Nice enough for me to keep my mouth shut and trust what she was telling me. When we arrived downtown, I asked where my mom and that guy were.

"Let's go up to my office, honey," she said sympathetically.

We went inside this big brick building that had about six American flags hanging on the front of it. The halls looked like some kind of hospital, but didn't smell like one. I smelled food, like nasty cafeteria food. It reminded me of those disgusting rolls they made me eat in elementary school. There wasn't anybody else around as this lady walked me to her office.

"Here we are," she said, pointing to a door with the name "J HAMILTON" on it.

Her office was big and clean. She had a ton of plants sitting on the
floor and hanging from the ceiling. She told me to have a seat and she spent about five minutes flipping through a bunch of papers in a big red binder.

"Be patient," she said. "I have to get everything together here."

I sat there for another ten minutes or so, just watching her flip.

"So what's going on?" I finally asked.

"Okay, I think we're ready."

I wasn't really scared anymore, just getting bored.

"Your mom is going to have to go away for a little while."

"Why?"

"Well, she's having some problems, but we're going to make sure she gets some good help so she can come back and take care of you."

I didn't really care for my mom all that much because she was a drunk and yelled at me a lot. I always thought she was to blame for my dad running off. I was worried about my gun, though, which was hidden under my bed at home.

"What about my gun?"

The lady looked a little puzzled. "Gun?"

"Yeah, you know, my gun?"

"Well, we'll have someone go and get your gun, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now since you don't really have any immediate family, you're going to have to stay with two very nice people in our program until we can find you a more temporary place to live, okay, Dennis?"

"Sure."

After she filled out a lot of forms and made a bunch of phone calls, a
young woman named Patricia came and took me out to her car. We drove for about ten minutes and stopped at this beautiful house that sat right in the middle of a rich neighborhood. Two clowns rushed out to greet me.

I was sent away to live with two clowns whose stage names were Alfie and Malphie. They were professionals. I soon discovered that all they ever did was prepare for their shows and try to make me "smile." I've never been able to get certain images out of my mind. I started to see their clown noses on their faces when they weren't wearing them. They spoke in a high pitch "clown" voice regardless of whether they were "in character" or not. Since they were foster parents or whatever, I didn't expect them to really grow on me as parents, but the whole clown aspect made becoming any kind of family that much more difficult.

They would use their clown acts to cheer me up when I was depressed and use slapstick comedy routines to make me laugh when I was crying. These things only made my childhood much, much worse. This went on for about a week until I walked in on them having sex in their costumes one night. I had never seen two clowns having sex before. I ran away that night and started living on the streets of Baltimore.

 

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Mike Smith is a writer, but makes more money by working at libraries and radio stations. He once used his training in English to teach high school Math. "Tell Christian I'm Sorry" is his first novel. The novel contains a lot of stories. Read his book. Look at his website (www.tellchristian.com).

To read Mike's Swallowed Birds-a-Listenin'click here, on this sentence.


 

 

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